I want to preface this post by saying that I do not consider myself a poet. I write poetry, I love reading it, and poetry is primarily what I post on Instagram and submit to literary journals. But I’ve always felt somewhat of a disconnect when it comes to writing poetry. Part of that disconnect—and I believe I may have mentioned this in an early post on this blog—comes from this weird preconception that I somehow still have that poetry should come from inspiration and from passion. I always thought that poetry should come in a flurry of writing and long form prose came from careful planning. For me, it’s always been the opposite. I’m sure I could go into all of the weird reasons of why that may be but that’s a completely different tangent that has nothing to do with this post.

What I’m trying to say is that I don’t look at writing poetry as a poet—or as someone with a passion for it. I write poetry for the sake of improving my prose writing. If you would like to check out an example of my free verse or formal poetry feel free to visit this issue of Backchannels Literary Journal. The first poem is free verse and the second is a rispetto so it’ll show an example of each style that I’ll be talking about here.

With a whole lot of introduction aside, I’m writing this post to talk about how writing free verse and/or formal (formulaic) poetry can be used to improve your skills as a prose writer.

One of the biggest things I’ve seen in the writing of people who write a lot is the formation of habits. I do this, as well. I can’t tell you how many times you’ll find the word “however” as a transition in both my fiction and non-fiction writing or how often I’ll go through and do edits simply to better vary sentence structure.

Some habits can be good. Habits are, in a way, what forms a writer’s style. Our habits make our writing uniquely ours. However, habits can also be tiresome. I recently reread a book that was one of my favorites in high school and the author had a habit of writing “oh my gods” in the dialogue which, honestly, I love but it didn’t really make sense considering the characters saying it were in Catholic school and were raised with/not rebelling from Catholicism. I don’t imagine many Catholics acknowledge multiple deities when saying “Oh my god.” I still adore the book but sometimes our writing habits can get in the way of the story we’re trying to tell.

Poetry helps us challenge our habits and be more aware of how we use language.

I admit that I’ve always had this weird bias where I thought that successful free verse poetry was more impressive than formal poetry (which is not true, I think that might just be because of recent trends in poetry publication or even just how it’s taught early on but that’s another tangent). Both, however, can help you challenge your writing habits in different ways.

Benefits of writing free verse poetry:

• You can choose the form
  • This may also be a “con” of the form just because the open nature of it allows you to fall into old habits if you’re not careful.
• You can choose the topic
  • Instead of feeling tied to the idea that a limerick should be raunchy or that a rispetto should be about the beauty of a woman (neither of which are “rules” but I know I tend to stick to the traditional topics in formal poetry) you can explore your genres or the themes you may be writing about in a book in poetic form. Often times poetry is more concise so exploring the topics of your prose writing in a free verse poem can help you identify the core of what you’re trying to say and how to say it in a succinct yet beautiful manner. 

Benefits of writing formal/formulaic poetry:

• They force varied vocabulary
  • I absolutely adore Welsh poetic forms. They have so many rules about rhyming and alliteration and meter that it really challenges you to find just the right word to say what you want to say in a way that is still beautiful. 
• They force varied syntax
  • Just as with vocabulary, if you only have so much room to say something, oftentimes you have to break away from your usual patterns in order to say it.
• It can put you outside of your area of expertise
  • As I said earlier, sticking with the traditional themes of a poetic form is by no means a hard and fast rule. However, by exploring those themes in your poetry you may break away from the conventions of what you usually write about. Both in fiction and non-fiction writing, experience outside of your given genre or field can color your writing and make it more interesting to write and to read.

I know both of those are very short lists but breaking the habits of your own writing and expanding your knowledge of what language itself can be is an invaluable skill in any form of writing. If anyone has any other ways of using poetry as a skill-building exercise, please comment below; I would love to know!